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Abba Kovner, Israeli Poet, Dies

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September 27, 1987, Page 001046 The New York Times Archives

Abba Kovner, a leading Israeli poet and founder of the Brichah movement, which involved the transit of almost 300,000 Jews from Eastern and Central Europe to Palestine after World War II, died of cancer of the larynx Friday at his home at the Ein Hahoresh kibbutz in Israel. He was 69 years old.

Mr. Kovner was born into an Orthodox Jewish family on March 14, 1918, in Vilnius, now the capital of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.

During the Second World War, Mr. Kovner organized underground Jewish resistance in the ghetto of Vilnius, then known as Vilna, but was forced to flee into the forest, where he joined other Lithuanian partisans, when the ghetto was destroyed in 1943 by the Nazis.

In July 1944, Mr. Kovner returned to the ruins of Vilna, where over 40,000 Jews had been killed, after leading Jewish resisters in their successful fight alongside Lithuanian partisans against the occupying German Army.

In 1946, Mr. Kovner moved to the Ein Hahoresh kibbutz, near Tel Aviv, where he built a reputation as one of Israel's foremost poets.

In his numerous books of poetry, Mr. Kovner evoked the experience of East European Jews during the Holocaust. One book, ''Little Sister of Mine,'' depicts the tragedy of execution and separation faced by Jewish children during the war.

In his most recent works, Mr. Kovner wrote of his declining health. A book called ''Sloan Kettering'' dealt with a stay of several months last year in the hospital of that name, where his larynx was removed, leaving him speechless.

Mr. Kovner won several literary awards, including the Israel Prize of Literature.

He is survived by his wife, Vitka, and a daughter, Shlomit, of Ein Hahoresh; a son, Michael, of Jerusalem and three grandsons.

A version of this obituary appears in print on September 27, 1987, on Page 1001046 of the National edition with the headline: Abba Kovner, Israeli Poet, Dies. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe